A Cold and Sterile Heaven

The other day while browsing in the library, I found out that Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, authors of the Left Behind series, have also written a trilogy of prequels. (As long as Christians continue to purchase these awful books, it seems, they intend to keep churning them out.) The final installment of this trilogy is called The Rapture, and it’s about just that, written from the point of view of the faithful Christians who are miraculously transported to Heaven.

Much of the book is taken up by a long roll call in which the raptured “saints” and saved dead are called before God’s white throne and praised for the good works they did. This litany is very revealing, because essentially the only thing they have in common is that they in some way contributed to the spread of Christianity. Famous evangelists, missionaries, translators of the Bible, and historical preachers are all listed for their great “achievement”. In LaHaye’s conception, the only deed that merits honor or remembrance is converting others to Christianity. In fact, the saved are made to pass through a fire that “burns away” everything else that they did in their lives.

This is religion in its most purely viral form, its only purpose consisting of self-propagation. As Slacktivist says, their version of Christianity is the “contentless gospel”: “The good news is that now you can tell others the good news.”

This cold and sterile heaven doesn’t seem like any kind of paradise I’d want to live in. Why would I want to share eternity with these boring, repetitive, dogmatic preachers, those whose greatest achievement in life was the unvarying repetition of words written by others? It’s as if people were selected specifically for their lack of independent thought or creativity. What a tiresome, monotonous place that heaven would be!

Even worse, the book makes it clear that access to this heaven is limited to those mindless believers who mouthed the proper words of submission to the creed of one particular small and narrow sect. Everyone else, in this conception of Christianity, no matter what else they achieved or what good they did, is condemned to the torment of eternal immolation. Again – this is a heaven we should want to go to? To spend eternity praising a cruel tyrant in the company of his fellow slaves, and to miss out on the company of the bright and lively minds of history’s most famous nonbelievers?

Just think of who’d be missing from the rapture-fanatics’ heaven. Or, if you prefer, consider an alternative: a humanist heaven in which people were rewarded not for their allegiance to dogma, but for their contributions to humanity’s intellectual and cultural history, and for the good they did in the lives of those who came after them. Imagine who would be there, and imagine what a joy it would be to dwell among them!

Imagine a salon where you could discuss politics and statecraft with Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, George Washington, James Madison and Thomas Paine, as well as their precursors of the Enlightenment such as John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Hobbes, Adam Smith and Jeremy Bentham. From feminists and reformers such as Susan B. Anthony, Margaret Sanger, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Emma Goldman and Vashti McCollum, these early giants could learn how their work had laid the ground for later flowerings of liberty. Or, if you preferred to talk about science and the glories of the natural world, there’d be symposia attended by Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, Carl Sagan, Richard Feynman, Galileo Galilei, Pierre and Marie Curie, and many more besides.

In airier realms of thought, most of history’s great philosophers would be there: Lucretius and Epicurus from ancient Greece, Giordano Bruno, David Hume, Baruch Spinoza, Bertrand Russell, Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson. One could pass many pleasurable hours lying in the shade and listening to these great thinkers holding forth on the beautiful abstractions of the mind.

The music, too, would be magnificent. One could enjoy the symphonies of Giuseppe Verdi, Ludwig von Beethoven, Hector Berlioz, Johannes Brahms and Richard Strauss – or, for a more modern bent, the stylings of Irving Berlin, John Lennon, Cole Porter, and Yip Harburg. For oratory, poetry and literature, it would boast Robert Ingersoll, George Eliot, Leo Tolstoy, Omar Khayyam, Kurt Vonnegut, Isaac Asimov, H.G. Wells, Robert Frost – and that’s just for starters. And this imaginary humanist heaven would not lack for laughter. You can hear the roaring of the crowds being entertained by Mark Twain, by Voltaire, by H.L. Mencken, by Douglas Adams, by George Carlin (alas), and by many more proud subversives who’ve used the weapon of humor to expose the absurdities of earthly society.

The roll call of famous names that would be present in a humanist’s heaven shows, by comparison, just how empty and impoverished the dogmatist’s heaven would be. All the illustrious thinkers and critics I listed above would be missing from any afterlife that sorts admission based solely on adherence to an orthodox creed. Such a place would hardly be paradise at all, but merely an echo chamber resounding through eternity with the monotonous chants of fossilized minds. How could Heaven be Heaven if it did not pay tribute to the fullest and grandest flowerings of the human creative spirit?

The dogmatist’s nightmarish hallucination of heaven, fortunately for us, does not exist. Like a nightmare that dissipates in the dawn, it fades away in the light of reason. Alas, the humanist’s heaven is also a dream, albeit a more pleasant one. I’d give almost anything to be witness to such a meeting of the minds, but there’s no rational reason to believe it will ever happen. Those who have passed on have left the world to us, and though ripples of their influence live on in the books they wrote and the lives they changed, the essence of the individual is gone and cannot be reclaimed. We mourn them, we honor them, but ultimately we must move on. The responsibility of guiding the future now lies with we who live – so rather than spend our time dreaming of another life, let’s turn our attention fully to this one. Our predecessors have left us an abundance of good lessons; let’s keep them in mind, so that we may write the next chapter for the good of those who, in turn, will succeed us.

Religions invaribly have rather poor heavens. The exception may be Islam, because he tried to describe it, but it still falls rather short.

Personally, If there was a heaven, it would be awesome if it was a Dyson sphere. Sure, you’d have to do life all over again, with everyone who came before you (well, even if they weed the worst out, you’ll still have unpleasent people), but to have all that room…

http://www.xanga.com/andrea_thatonegirl TheNerd

Don’t forget that the Christian heaven is devoid of free will (i.e. original thought) as well, because free will and the knowledge of good and evil is the origin of selfishness and sin.

I for one don’t see how an eternity as a blissful automaton is any better than a peaceful lack of existance after death.

http://gretachristina.typepad.com/ Greta Christina

How could Heaven be Heaven if it did not pay tribute to the fullest and grandest flowerings of the human creative spirit?

It just would. Don’t you know that? By definition. Because God is magic, and he can do anything. And not only can he put you in a sterile, echo- chamber heaven — he can make you enjoy it.

It reminds me of that old joke about the Russian revolution. A revolutionary instigator is talking to a peasant, saying, “Come the revolution, you’ll feast every night on strawberries and cream.”

“Actually,” says the peasant, “I don’t much like strawberries and cream.”

“Come the revolution,” the insurgent replies sternly, “you will eat strawberries and cream, and you will like it!”

That’s what most descriptions of Heaven sound like to me. Come the Rapture, you will spend eternity singing the praises of God, and you will like it.

But it’s not like any of us would wind up there anyway. The only people who would go to the echo- chamber Heaven are the people who would enjoy it.

hb531

And to think many of these Christians would throw away humanities best and most creative and enjoyable works during this life! Not only would they exist in a boring, monotonous heaven, they want to make our earthly reality the same.

American Taliban comes to mind….

http://www.synapticplastic.blogspot.com InTheImageOfDNA

Many Christians (as I’m sure members of other afterlife-believing religions) also feel that without a heaven, Earthly existence is meaningless. Without a purpose, (striving for heaven) they say, life is meaningless. But they haven’t thought it out.

Consistent within their own reasoning, heaven would have to have a heaven and existence within the first one would have to be temporary for it to have meaning.

But as it is, their “heaven” is as meaningless and purposeless as they falsely accuse of the atheist worldview.

Christopher

Looking back, I don’t know what I ever saw in this concept of “heaven” – all day you offer praise to some entity that lets you stay out of a burning pit of lava for showing “mercy” on you. I used to think that this was just one interpretation of this place, but it turned out to be the only one accepted by my old church. Upon realizing this, the idea lost all of its appeal.

But, if I did get a chance to create a “heaven” it would be a chaotic place – it would be a place where I had the power to destroy everything within it, rebuild it from scratch at my pleasure and then destroy it all again so that I can repeat the process once more: I’d be living the life of the Ubermensch every day and nothing would ever be the same twice! Such things as “order,” “law” or “morals” would be completely foreign concepts to this place – as there would be only the will of the individual dictating the reality of this realm into existence.

This is just an idea, of course, but you have to admit – it’s a hell of lot more interesting than those sterile and “orderly” visions of heaven our society seems infatuated with…

Kaltrosomos

Well, you can always take an agnostic stance on the question of what happens after death. Though an afterlife seems unlikely, you never know.

And even if we have lost many great minds, there’s hope. Humanity seems very capable of producing new ones. We just have to cultivate the intellectual soil and cultural climate for them to grow in, encouraging and strengthening any seeds we find. For that matter, we could plant seeds of our own.

Samuel Skinner

Trust me on this- there isn’t an afterlife. That would require souls and do you know how many scientific laws those things break? They are called scientific laws for a reason- you NEVER break em.

Thumpalumpacus

I’m reminded of the Twilight Zone where the dead robber is shown around the afterlife, with its huge mansion, beautiful bimbos, limousines, and then he finds the casino. Of course his every pull on the arm is rewarded with three bars. Finally he turns and yells at his guide: “What kind of Heaven is this?!” Guide: “Who said you were in Heaven?”, and fade to black over dissonant strings.

And Sammy –

I don’t think Adam’s actually postulating an afterlife — just engaging in some wishful thinking. :)

http://anexerciseinfutility.blogspot.com Tommykey

I always find it interesting how Christians represent the god they worship in monarchical terms. The Jack Chick tracts depict a faceless god sitting on a throne. Jesus is referred to as “lord”. Jesus spoke of “the kingdom” of god. Christian songs sing in praise that “He Reigns!” The scene that Ebon discusses above from the Left Behind book in which the raptured “saints” and saved dead are called before God’s white throne.

I could go on and on, but I think I have made it clear. These people don’t really believe in freedom and liberty, they believe in servitude and their master has all the trappings of a Stalinist dictator or a plantation slave owner. The big difference though is that the Soviet citizen or the plantation slave trembled in fear at being killed by real people that they could see.

KShep

I figured out long ago that if heaven didn’t involve jammin’ with Frank Zappa, it couldn’t possibly exist! :^)

Eric

Christopher; I like your Idea of ubermensch heaven. That’s the kind of heaven I could enjoy. I’d rather call it Gyges’ Ring heaven.

But seriously, a lot of Christian traditions allow for nonbelievers to get into heaven. For instance, Aquinas tackled the problem of what happens to people who never heard the Christian message. Aquinas thought that some of them might have been/be saved by “implicit faith” in Jesus even though they migh have no clear idea who Jesus is/was/would be. As long as they acknowledge the Creator, notice there is an alienation between mankind and the Creator, and speculate that there must be some kind of means of reconciliation with the Creator which proceeds from the Creator they just might make it.

Of course there isn’t much to say for the idea of a creator. The things of nature are vastly different form artifacts. When was the last time you saw a watch be born, hatch from an egg, or sprout from a seed?

yoyo

basically it’s the “any club that would accept me I dont want to be a member of” joke.

they can keep this heaven.

http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/User:Modusoperandi Modusoperandi

I can see why He’d take away free will in Heaven. He’d pretty much have to. Put a bunch of people in a room, and given enough time they’ll find something to disagree about. Imagine the schisms and the inter-denomination infighting in a place where everybody has a holier than thou attitude. One lifetime with one Falwell is nothing compared to an eternity with a hundred thousand Falwellians (new word! Woo!).

bestonnet

Sounds more like a description of hell to me but then again, I’m actually capable of independent thought.

Samuel Skinner:

Religions invaribly have rather poor heavens. The exception may be Islam, because he tried to describe it, but it still falls rather short.

72 exclusive nymphomaniacs would be pretty nice but to really be heaven you’d need a lot more than just that.

Samuel Skinner:

Personally, If there was a heaven, it would be awesome if it was a Dyson sphere. Sure, you’d have to do life all over again, with everyone who came before you (well, even if they weed the worst out, you’ll still have unpleasent people), but to have all that room…

You’re thinking a bit small here, I want a whole universe to play with (actually one might not even be enough).

Though when one considers what is possible, either right now with our technology or that which we can’t do but which doesn’t break the laws of physics it does become really obvious that those gods weren’t really offering very much.

Even just fixing this place up and figuring out life extension would produce something that is so much better than traditional religious afterlives that pretty much no one will ever care about what the religions are offering (or at least I hope so).

TheNerd:

I for one don’t see how an eternity as a blissful automaton is any better than a peaceful lack of existance after death.

It’s worse than death.

Christopher:

But, if I did get a chance to create a “heaven” it would be a chaotic place – it would be a place where I had the power to destroy everything within it, rebuild it from scratch at my pleasure and then destroy it all again so that I can repeat the process once more: I’d be living the life of the Ubermensch every day and nothing would ever be the same twice! Such things as “order,” “law” or “morals” would be completely foreign concepts to this place – as there would be only the will of the individual dictating the reality of this realm into existence.

This does raise a good point as to what heaven would be and about the only feature I can come up with for what heaven should be is a place where you can do whatever you like (though safeguards to prevent you harming others would of course be allowed).

Fortunately our society seems to be moving towards that.

Tommykey:

I always find it interesting how Christians represent the god they worship in monarchical terms. The Jack Chick tracts depict a faceless god sitting on a throne. Jesus is referred to as “lord”. Jesus spoke of “the kingdom” of god. Christian songs sing in praise that “He Reigns!” The scene that Ebon discusses above from the Left Behind book in which the raptured “saints” and saved dead are called before God’s white throne.

That was the type of government that dominated when Christianity first appeared, it’s to be expected that a religion will tend to mirror the type of society and morality of the place and time that it first appeared in.

Tommykey:

I could go on and on, but I think I have made it clear. These people don’t really believe in freedom and liberty, they believe in servitude and their master has all the trappings of a Stalinist dictator or a plantation slave owner. The big difference though is that the Soviet citizen or the plantation slave trembled in fear at being killed by real people that they could see.

That’s all true of course although the more liberal members of the religion wouldn’t think that (although they don’t actually worship the Christian god but a different being that is basically the Christian god with some of the immorality chopped off).

Modusoperandi:

One lifetime with one Falwell is nothing compared to an eternity with a hundred thousand Falwellians (new word! Woo!).

Though that is a pretty accurate description of the Christian conception of heaven, at least as believed by those who take the bible literally.

http://www.yunshui.wordpress.com yunshui

I’ve always felt that the Christian Heaven was rather… unimaginative, I suppose. Your average hack sci-fi writer can come up with a far more inventive and creative afterlife.

The other thing I remember realising about Heaven (when I was a regular churchgoer, aged about 12) is that if most of the people from my church were going to be there, it was going to be very, very dull. When I was very small, I figured Heaven would be like a funfair – as I grew older it seemed that the rest of the church believed it would be like one endless church service, and that to me seemed more like Hell. An angelic army of elderly ladies with blue-rinse hair and a few spotty and virulently over-enthusiastic youth workers – not the company I wanted to spend eternity with…

Your average hack sci-fi writer can come up with a far more inventive and creative afterlife.

A lot of science fiction is exactly that, just not presented as an afterlife.

lpetrich

It gets even worse in the final book in the Left Behind timeline, Kingdom Come: the Final Victory. It takes place during Jesus Christ’s 1000-year reign, or more precisely, the first 100 years of it. Our heroes get to meet lots of Bible characters, who then tell their stories, something that takes up much of the book. One of the characters is pleasantly surprised that he still loves his wife despite having no sex drive (!)

At the end of this book, LaHaye and Jenkins skip over the next 900 years and briefly mention the Devil’s final attack and final defeat (Revelation 20).

goyo

The bible is surprisingly mute about how heaven really is, except for the “many mansions” quote from jesus. And yet, how many preachers have you heard talk about life in heaven? I always felt like yunshui, I didn’t want to be there with my mom and all her senile friends. The concept is so open-ended that each believer imagines their own heaven, hence it fits everyone’s dream.

velkyn

I’m curious but doesn’t Revelations have this period of “peace” but then God just has to release Satan again from the pit for another run at people? How do Lahaye (and his gay pron-named characters Rayford Steel and Buck Williams) explain this or do they just ignore it.

goyo

Yes, it does. That’s always been strange to me too. jesus rules the earth for a period of 1,000 years, then satan comes back and people follow him? How good must jesus’ rule be?

bestonnet

goyo:

jesus rules the earth for a period of 1,000 years, then satan comes back and people follow him? How good must jesus’ rule be?

Not very.

Christopher

Seems to me that this fabled theocracy isn’t quite the paradise it’s cracked up to be – if the people were living in eternal bliss, why would they instantly rebel the moment one dissident element is unleashed into their midst? Could it be that the “millenial reign of Christ” is a rather hellish dictatorship that favors one class of people over all the others – creating a social rift that can be easily exploited by Satan?

nfpendleton

Like most theistic notions, the less you describe, analyze, and define heaven, the better it works. Most fictionists–whether they be writers or filmmakers–know that its usually more affective to leave it to the imagination.

And (thankfully) I’ve not had to suffer through the LB series and its prequels, but I can’t shake the feeling that most xians should balk at LaJenkins’ arrogant presumption to know who made it in to heaven and who didn’t. That stinks of blasphemy.

http://www.yunshui.wordpress.com yunshui

I’m actually a tiny bit curious to read the Left Behind books, since they don’t have anything like the same level of popularity over here in the UK. Would anyone who has read them actually recommend them on any level?

Christopher

Yunshui,

I read the first two parts of the series (“Left Behind” and “Tribulation Force”) and I can tell you that there’s nothing in there worth reading: just 2-D characters, a predictible “plot” and a complete lack of imagination – avoid these books like the plague.

nfpendleton

At the Slacktivist blog, he calls them “The Worst Books Ever Written.” And he’s pretty much right on. I read the first half of Book 1 and it read like a poorly conceived first draft.

I know Ebon has a link to Slacktivist on the sight somewhere. If you’re curious, he’s doing a “Left Behind Friday” series where he shreds–I mean, critiques–the book almost page by page. Worth checking out.

http://www.yunshui.wordpress.com yunshui

Having checked out a couple of Slacktivist’s critiques – yes indeed, that does look cringe-inducingly awful. My wallet will remain in my pocket. Thanks for the advice, gents.

EKM

On June 27, 2008, 7:07 pm, Tommykey said:

I could go on and on, but I think I have made it clear. These people don’t really believe in freedom and liberty, they believe in servitude and their master has all the trappings of a Stalinist dictator or a plantation slave owner.

When I was in school, another student said she would have been willing to vote Reagan Dictator For Life. And I think she was serious.

He Who Invents Himself

This sort of reminds me of the theists’ quip that under atheism the world / humankind has no ultimate purpose or meaning. To which I ask, “So what is the ultimate purpose with God?” What does God want? Once all’s said and done, there will be absolutely nothing more to do, and therefore no more happiness.

[From Wikipedia:] “Philosopher Blaise Pascal claimed that without God, people would only be able to create obstacles and overcome them in an attempt to escape boredom. These token victories would ultimately become meaningless, since people would eventually die, and this was good enough reason not to become an atheist.” I see exactly the same “problem” of ultimate boredom under theism.

Wowbagger

As humans we’re constantly seeking change, variety and new experiences. The only way I could conceive of it is if it involved regular memory wiping. No matter how good something is you’d get bored with it after a while – and that includes 72 virgins, now matter how enthusiatic they might be.

Christopher

He Who Invents Himself,

“This sort of reminds me of the theists’ quip that under atheism the world / humankind has no ultimate purpose or meaning. To which I ask, ‘So what is the ultimate purpose with God?’”

I once brought up a similar question to a Christian I went to college with: he claimed that without a “god” their would be no standard of “good” and thus all values would disappear – and I asked him by what standard would the “goodness” of a “god” be measured. He claimed that “god” is “good,” but I persisted in asking what it was that made his “god” “good.” By the time it was all over, he admitted that “god” would have to consider itself “good” in order to be “good” – essentially admitting that “goodness” is just a matter of fiat.

In short, even if there was something called “god” there still wouldn’t be any objective “goodness” or “meaning” as this “god” would have to define its own concepts of these things into existence – thus they would be conceived from its own subjective point of view and no more reliable than any concepts of “goodness” or “meaning” we can make all on our own.

Stryder

I love this forum, and this web site – thanks so much for doing it Ebonmuse! I recently posted some questions about the afterlife on a Christain website. I wondered whether they thought Christians would still have free will in heaven and whether they would still be possible for them to sin. Within hours my post was moved from the approved Christian area to a little outpost reserved for the “lost” to be taught Christianity’s “truth”. I was also warned that if my purpose was any other than to learn the truth of Christianity (i.e. if I actually was there to challemge anyone on their beliefs) I would be banned from the site. I thought it was most interesting that this Christian web site would blatantly squelch honest inquiry while atheist web sites like this one welcome all points of view as long as people aren’t rude or profane. Is it any wonder I feel more comfortable here?

bestonnet

It’s possible to find Christian fora that don’t censor anyone and actually tolerant disagreement although you’ll probably find that they aren’t biblical literalists (and thus aren’t all that much fun).

I suspect the reason tolerance of disagreement is so much higher when atheists are running things is because atheists tend to have good reasons for their beliefs and so have the confidence to subject them to close scrutiny, something a lot of religious people seem to lack.

I’m actually a tiny bit curious to read the Left Behind books, since they don’t have anything like the same level of popularity over here in the UK. Would anyone who has read them actually recommend them on any level?

Absolutely not. They’re complete crap in just about every sense of the word.

If you’re at all interested in the ‘end of times’ stuff I recommend The Christ Cloned Trilligy.

andrew

At the Slacktivist blog, he calls them “The Worst Books Ever Written.” And he’s pretty much right on. I read the first half of Book 1 and it read like a poorly conceived first draft.

I dont if I’d go so far to say teh ‘worst books ever written.’ I’v definetly read worse books(Twilight comes to mind). But they are definetly not worth reading.

nightshadequeen

Andrew:

Oh, come on, give Twilight a break. It’s sure more interesting than the book I’m reading right now.

The book? Exodus. Everything in that series is downright strange or boring, methinks.

John

I’m not a bleiver in Joeseph Smith and his talltales but has any1 every noticed the Mormon concept of Heaven and eternal progression seems to be head and shoulders above the other Chrsitian faiths.

Andrew

Yes but Twilight was strange, boring AND actively encouraged stalking and pedophila. After reading it I had to read Interview with a Vampire to remind me why I used to like vampires….

Scotlyn

yunshui

I’m actually a tiny bit curious to read the Left Behind books, since they don’t have anything like the same level of popularity over here in the UK. Would anyone who has read them actually recommend them on any level?

I read one once as a teenager, and my over-riding memory is of fear, which lasted for a week or two after reading it. Possibly, if you are still susceptible to fear of hell and tribulation, that is what works with these books. I’ve had no desire to read one again. But on the other hand, you may be interested in Left Behind Gaming… I kid you not! According to the site intro:

“More than 63 million books have been sold from the Left Behind series. Of those millions of fans 72 percent play video games.”

BTW Tolkein wrote a short story which suggests an afterlife which actually has some appealing aspects. See _Leaf by Niggle_. It is certainly far better than the Heaven mentioned in the starting post.

http://jordan.lee_r@yahoo.com Lee

People who enjoy science, study science…people who like math, practice math….people who like to write, do just that…It was said earlier on here that they would not want to live in a monotonous heaven, well I challenge you to explain to me what isn’t “monotonous”? And who says that the preachers read the same verses over and over? 31,102 verses in the Bible…If a preacher preached from one verse a day every day, the Scripture would last him over 87 years. Now how is this monotonous. The act of studying anything is monotonous, but any one thing which is studied can be very vast.

Thumpalumpacus

The music my band performs isn’t monotonous. The delightful surprises my son gives me aren’t monotonous. The conversations I have with friends aren’t monotonous.

Preachery is monotonous.

http://jordan.lee_r@yahoo.com Lee

So you don’t relate to any genre when you play in your band?

http://feralboy12.com feralboy12

Yeah, heaven will be just wonderful…until somebody suddenly stands up and says, “wait a minute, this is grass! We’ve been eating grass!”

Caiphen

I reckon YEC’s eat grass now. It’ll half explain their similar intelligence to a cow. They’ll need plenty of it in heaven.

Adam Lee of Daylight Atheism

Adam Lee is an atheist writer and speaker living in New York City. He created Daylight Atheism to push back against undeserved privileging of religion and to encourage atheists to step out of their closets, into the daylight, and take our rightful place at the table of society’s discourse.